Remembering Our Calling
When I was thinking of music for this service, Hymn 497 was humming
in my head and heart. Not only is it a great Epiphany hymn, it
was a favorite of Lorna Gifford. Next door, we have Lorna’s
piano, and I’ve perused her old piano music books. I found How Brightly Shines the Morning Star,
dog-eared and well worn, and started to learn to play it back in
Advent. It followed me into Christmas and now, here is its proper
season, Epiphany. It’s a great hymn. And it fits with what
I find myself thinking about every year at this time – the time of the
Annual Meeting: What is the mission of the church in the world and how
is St. James’ fulfilling that mission here in Carroll County? For
our local church is part of the great mystical body of Christ, that
mysterious entity we speak of as “the Church” that is not bound to any
one time or place, and yet, expresses itself in millions of small
places like this one.
The collect today tells us something of the mission of the Church:
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus
Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by
your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s
glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the
earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit
lives and reigns, one God, now and forever.
So we as the church are to follow Christ, the light of the
world. We are to lift up the Word and Sacraments, and we are to
so participate in the life of the Word and Sacraments (the life of the
church) that we are transformed and illumined by the presence of Christ
within them. We are to shine with the very radiance of Christ, as
communicated to us by Word and Sacraments, so that we make Christ known
to the ends of the earth.
That’s a high calling.
Are we putting the Word and Sacraments at the center of our lives?
That’s the question.
Lot’s of people get together for lots of different purposes in the
world. The church gathers round the Word and Sacraments, and is
drawn to them by Christ, the light of the world. That’s the
center of our life together.
Are we consciously making that the center, or are we bored with that,
and looking for more exciting and exotic things. Would we rather
take a cruise to Tuscany for lunch, India for an afternoon siesta of
slight meditation, and then off to Bali to fall fantastically in
love. Are we more interested in what’s on television than in
renewing our baptismal covenant? Does sleeping in take precedence
over communion?
The truth is, that unless we very intentionally and consciously put
Word and Sacraments at the center of our lives, lots of other stuff
seems way more important than that. And Word and Sacraments
become just another obligation, and a meaningless one at that. We
are a people who are easily bored, and quickly move on to the next big
thing.
What the disciples, Apostles and early Christians learned is this:
unless we make tremendous effort to follow and obey and grow in faith,
Word and Sacraments do not reveal their precious radiance to us, or in
us. We have to become vessels that can bear such radiance, bear
such fine truth and love in a world that is full of much coarser stuff.
Last Sunday night at 5 pm, to celebrate the Baptism of Jesus, I invited
the congregation to the baptismal font (and we were small enough to all
gather in there, just a dozen of us). We walked through the rite
of baptism, and 4-year-old Michael remembered his experience of baptism
aloud. I asked, “Do you know anyone who was baptized here, in
this place?” And Michael pointed to his mother, his father, his
baby brother, and finally himself. And he could remember some
things. So we remembered and reflected.
When we are four years old, such things shine with radiance, and so
many things shine with celestial light. Brendan said, “I can’t
remember my baptism. I was just a baby.” True, neither can
I. I suppose that’s why I got into this priest business, so I
could be a part of baptism over and over again, maybe then I could
remember. As we grow older, we lose our capacity for wonder, the
world seems old and predictable, and radiance tends to fade. We
have to make real effort to clean out the mind and the heart in order
to be able to see things as they truly are again, to perceive the
illumination of the Word and Sacraments.
One morning this week, my children came into the kitchen for breakfast
and I said, “I’m from another planet. What a strange place this
is. On my planet there is nothing like this. Look at this,
now this is amazing.” And I poured water from a pitcher, slowly
into a glass. “Can you believe it?” I asked. “And now
watch!” And I drank it slowly, and with great relish. I was
trying to remind myself, and my children, of the mystery of this
existence. 47 years of it, and its easy to get jaded. I
have to work at remembering the wonder of existence, the awe of water.
And this is Epiphany! When we are reminded that John came
baptizing with water, out of obedience to God, not knowing quite why,
but working in obedience to God’s commands, waiting and watching. And
then he was able to see the Christ in Jesus. “I myself did not know
him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be
revealed to Israel.”
And when he was revealed, and John saw him, he sent his own disciples
on to follow Jesus. That is another aspect of the church’s
mission. We must always be surrendered to Christ, always seeking
to send people to follow Christ, and not holding onto people for our
own purposes. The church is not an entity that needs to have lots
buildings, big budgets, or complex structures. The church doesn’t
need to follow the latest marketing trend, or create lots of fun and
exciting programs. What the church needs is to follow Christ and
allow itself to be illumined by Christ in Word and Sacraments.
That is the treasure that we have to share with those who are seeking
something more than this world. Creating churches that compete
with other clubs for people’s time is not the answer. The
church’s answer to the malaise of the world is to return to Christ,
return to our center in Word and Sacraments, and stay there, no matter
how boring the world finds it to be, no matter how antiquated, quaint,
and silly. Word and Sacraments is what we are about.
That is why I am so concerned that we are surrounded by generations of
people who have never even been exposed to the Word and
Sacraments. Children and adults who have no knowledge of the
Bible. Our own study of the Bible is not always so deep.
And the Sacraments? How often do we allow baptism and Eucharist
to make a change in us, to stop us from impulsively flying off the
handle in the middle of the week? We have a tremendous
opportunity right here and now to be truly nurtured by Word and
Sacraments in a new way of living. And in this new way, we can
also share Word and Sacraments through Godly Play, through Episcopal
Children’s Curriculum, through Bible studies and prayer. What
nourishes me in ministry is that those opportunities are alive every
day for us here at St. James. Thank God people are
interested. Thank God there is good work to be doing here, and
that it is not busywork, it is the real work of the church in Word and
Sacraments, it is the center of our common life. Let’s remember
our baptisms and get back to it in 2008. Let’s be able to say
with John, “I came baptizing with water for this reason, that Christ
might be revealed to the faithful.”
Amen
The Rev. Edie Bird
2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, 2008
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